A bug in every system
18-21 October, 2018
I could say that nothing has been happening for the past four days, but that’s not true. I’m recovering from a stomach bug, the first illness I’ve had in all these years of travelling; and I’m just very thankful that we’re safe in our London apartment and it hasn’t taken too much out of the enjoyment of the last few days!
To pick up the threads from where we left off, we were sad to see the last of Skye. Our original plan had been to drive down to Armadale in the southeast of the island and take our last ferry across to Mallaig, then drive back to Inverness; but looking at the timings and what we wanted to do in Inverness, we decided to ditch that idea and just drive straight over the Skye Bridge and back to Inverness.
The scenery as we drove east across the island then through the Glens and back to Inverness by quite a different route (the Nav in the Passat can be quite random) was the Scottish wonderful that we love, but the weather had definitely turned. It was grey and cold and we realised that we were lucky to have walked in the first week of October: any later would have been really cold in the mornings.
An early return to Inverness gave us the chance to wash clothes and get organised before the sardine tin trick of getting on the train. We both slept well but its very easy to forget, in the age of high-speed rail, just how far north Inverness is: the train takes nine hours and five of those are spent in Scotland.
Friday saw us back in London and ticking boxes. I hate Bank Station with a vengeance as it’s the only gateway to the Docklands Light Railway, but it has little in the way of accessible services; so you end up dragging bags up staircases, which usually means two trips. Getting off at Westferry was educational, because Tower Hamlets has pockets of real deprivation and some old migrant communities; but step back from West India Dock Road and the gentrification is well under way. Our apartment is on Limehouse Cut – it connects the Basin with Bow Creek and is very pleasant, so we have the promise of canal walks like last time, and wandering in to Canary Wharf for a drink.
I started feeling distinctly unwell on Saturday after what should have been a cracker of a day: our barge-borne lunch. Paula found this on-line when looking for different stuff to do in London – I managed Hamilton and Harry Potter, Paula found all the weekend stuff. You hop on an old barge which has been turned into a floating restaurant and down the canals you go, past Primrose Hill, Regents Park and turning around at Camden Town. Food? Delicious. Scenery? London’s last days of Indian Summer. You couldn’t ask for more – but I did. I wanted a normal temperature and a big nap. I ended up sleeping for about ten hours.
Nothing was going to stop Sunday’s fun, though. Thanks to a lucky spot in the SMH Traveller section, we were off to the Red Rooster, a funky new pub in Shoreditch. This is now hipster-central. How does on go from the Ripper Murders to Bloody Maries? Some one in East London is bound to know – or they’ll know someone, know what I mean?
The food was American Breakfast – I must have missed this last time we were in the States. Chicken and biscuits, that sort of thing – delicious, but where was my smashed avo? And to take one further out of the comfort zone, the House Gospel Choir!
This blew the cobwebs away! Gospel Music with a House Beat, performed in a pub on a Sunday Morning. To think I suggested Westminster Cathedral! As for Paula busting some moves…
A brief wander through Shoreditch Market (Dom will remember this from the end of our Jack the Ripper Walk) and it was home to the apartment, and some homework for our school visits.
